Alpha
by missgoflightly
Summary: One shot. Jacob Black decides it's time to move on and go home. Quotes from 'On the Waterfront' and 'Old Man, Old Man'.


**Fandom: **Twilight.

**Disclaimer: **No, I don't own Twilight or it's characters, I'm afraid.

**A/N: **One shot, mostly drabbles, strung together. First ever Twilight fic! Being a bit experiment. Jacob Black decides it's time to move on and come home. Quotes from Kazan's 'On the Waterfront' and U.A. Fanthorpe's 'Old Man, Old Man'.

**ALPHA**

_**kid, this ain't your night.**_

Jacob Black has no friends in New York City.

So he calls a cab from Grand Central Station to take him 'some place nice.'

The cabbie swings around to glare at him, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.

"You out of your effing mind, kid?" he wants to know.

Jacob touches his face, all hard planes and angles, thinking it's a man's face now surely, not a child's. He flexes his arm reflexively, threateningly. The cabbie eyes it warily.

"Alright, alright how about I take you down to Bryant Park," he suggests, now his tone's pleasant, "They got some o' the nicest rooms in Manhattan down there. Ya like that, buddy?"

Jacob shrugs, slides into the back-seat, "Sure, sure."

The cabbie snorts, spits tobacco out of the open window and the mustard yellow car departs. Jacob looks, his eyes slightly glazed, out of the taxi, watching the city pass him by. Sneakily, the cabbie's eyes dart to the kid from his mirror. What a big sonuvabitch, he thinks and smiles to himself, though I'd like to see him try and get together the money to pay for a room at Bryant Park. Matter of fact, I'd like to see him try and get together the money to pay for this ride. He better pay for the ride though, the cabbie thinks, the goddamn punk.

"You here on a holiday, buddy?" he asks, trying to strike up some semblance of a conversation. The cabbie's name is Roy, he lives in Queens with an ugly wife and a pair of troublesome kids who misses while he's on the job. It's a lonely job and he likes a bit of small talk with his passengers. _Humour me, buddy. _

"Er," the kid pauses, as if he's unsure of himself, "Yeah, taking a break."

_Taking a break. _Roy shakes his head, what's a kid gotta to take a break from. He suddenly eyes Jacob suspiciously, turning around rapidly and almost swerving into the bumper of a shiny BMW in front of him.

"Watch where you're going, dickbag!"

Roy ignores the voices, the honking, the yelling. He's so used to all of it, he could probably fall asleep to the sound of it – the din of New York traffic like a lullaby.

"You not in any trouble, are you kid? Drugs, booze, the police?"

For no reason, Jacob feels affronted. He's always been a good kid.

"Is it any of your business?" he asks and Roy turns around, muttering something indistinguishable beneath his breath. Jacob can hear him but he doesn't want to, so he focuses on the blinding lights and commotion of the city.

There's a tense, awkward silence between them. A thought strikes Roy.

"Girl troubles?" he asks.

He expects the kid to flare up again, to tell him to mind his own goddamn business (_and maybe he should)_ but instead the kid looks pained, as if he's just been winded.

"Something like that," he mumbles.

Unexpectedly, Roy feels bad for the kid. As the car lines up behind another, waiting for the softly pulsing traffic lights at the head of the road to go from _red _to _green_, he turns around again.

"That's tough going kid, though maybe heading all the way to Manhattan ain't your best option right now," he says, "Where's ya family?"

"Back home," Jacob mutters and Roy strains to hear, "Washington state."

The cabbie whistles, "Some way away then." He looks at the kid uncertainly, "I'm sure they'll all be missing you."

Jacob expels a breath, looks down at his big red-brown hands, "Yeah, they will."

The traffic unravels, cars begin to disperse and soon the cabbie and the kid are skimming through the streets of Manhattan.

Roy wants to say something else but doesn't know what, and the car draws up in front of the hotel.

"Here you go, kid," he says quietly, "You got the money?"

Jacob nods, hands him a crumpled note, "I got the money."

He moves to leave, there's a metallic clicking sound as the door opens and suddenly Roy extends his hand to put it on one hard, muscled tricep. Jacob glares at him, outraged, and the cabbie flinches, drops the hand as if he's been scalded _and it almost felt like I was._

"I just...it was just...needed to say," he flails pathetically, cursing the kid for making him feel like this – like a chick stalling for time at the end of a date when her man hasn't kissed her good night. He looks up into the kid's eyes that are cold and warm at the same time, friendly and reserved, age-old and brand new and as if it's been there all along, Roy finds what he needs to say.

"Go home, kid."

_**some people just have a face that sticks in your mind.**_

Jacob Black prowls the city, looking for an escape. He fights to inflict the pain some place physical, where he can see it, where he can treat it. He fights somebody, anybody, his memories, his dreams and his deteriorated hopes. He fights himself.

One night and Jacob's down at the Cellar Bar in Bryant Park Hotel on one of the cushy seats, drinking coke through a straw. He's asked for something stronger and been refused, and he's too exhausted to fight and all of a sudden, people don't seem willing to give in to a flex of a powerful arm.

_Do I look like a kid to you, mister? Do I?_

"Hi."

He turns around slowly, hesitantly, to see if the voice is directed at him. A fleshy blonde smiles down at him, "Is this seat taken?"

He gestures to the empty chair, "No-ope."

The blonde sits, her name's Norma and she's from Boston – just finished university and seeing friends in New York. She spots Jacob from across the bar and marvels at his strong, lithe form – like an athlete, a boxer – and when he turns, his profile _kills _her. The crooked nose, the broad lips, the eyes like coals on fire.

The bar tender approaches her courteously. She orders a vodka tonic. For half a moment, Jacob looks a little resentful.

"So are you from around here?" she asks, taking a swig of her drink, winding a curl of her hair around one finger.

It's a corny line and she knows it and so does he but he answers anyway.

"No, I'm from Idaho," he lies, needing no reason to be honest with the busty blonde, wishing he'd lied to the cabbie but knowing as soon as the cabbie fixed him with one watery brown eye, he couldn't.

She giggles, even though neither of them have said anything funny, "I'm from Boston. I'm gonna be here for a while, how about you?"

Jacob takes a final gulp of his drink, "Yeah, me too."

Norma giggles again, feeling slightly drunk. Maybe she should put the drink down.

"Goodie. I'm Norma by the way."

Jake nods, his eyes shift from his drink to look into her chubby face with the hopeful green eyes and the big, pouting mouth.

He almost shatters the glass he's holding because in that moment, the floor slides out from underneath him and then there's no Norma, no New York, no chic bar in a nice hotel, there's only a girl with pale skin and a shy smile and hair the colour of milk chocolate cascading down her shoulders.

He grips the glass so hard, Norma notices. She looks at him with concern.

"Are you alright?"

He feels dazed, the room is spinning but he ignores it, focusing on his breathing. Breathe in and out, in, out, in followed by out.

_How much longer will I have to remind myself to breathe? How much longer? _

Jacob looks at Norma, looks at her truly now, the pretty blonde with the perky chest and swollen lips. She's older than him, she's experienced obviously, it's just one night in a strange city with a stranger – why the hell not?

Jacob shrugs to his feet and mumbles to himself, "Sorry, I gotta go."

Norma splutters, rises too, "Wait, wait!" but she's so much slower than him and in a flash of dark clothing, he's gone. She sits down on her stool again, shoulders drooping, dejected while Jake flings open the doors at the entrance of the hotel and steps into the cold night, fingers pressed to his temple, trying to prevent his brain from imploding.

_Bella Bella Bella Bella Bella._

_**a one way ticket to palooka-ville.**_

Jacob Black contemplates his reflection in the Hudson River, from where he stands on the pier while the rest of New York Harbour bustles around him.

The reflection is like a portal to another place, another time where Jacob can see himself: this lonely, sad kid in a city that's too big for him, shirking his responsibility while the world around him, _his world dammit, _collapses.

He saw Sam the other day.

The bone-thin black wolf who he towered over (he, so strong, so sinewy in his spirit form) the black wolf who he'd remembered being so fearsome when Jacob picked a fight with Paul and Sam came to sort it out.

_It's hard being an Alpha without a Beta. It's even worse trying to be a Beta without an Alpha. _

Oh Sam, Jacob thinks appalled, Oh Sam.

_They're all struggling Jacob, struggling with the change and the constant phasing and it's killing me. There are always so many voices in my head, I hear them even when I'm human. They're killing me. _

Sam, always so strong and solitary and filled with an indomitable spirit. Sam sitting beside him, panting for breath, begging, _pleading. _

Jacob had never been so ashamed in his life.

_Just take a look, Jacob. Then consider your decision. _

Jacob has already taken a look, he's seen everything. Bella's anxiety to be married (_she needs a friend to lighten her up_), Charlie's desperate search for him (_Charlie, Charlie? Looking for me like I was his own son_), Quil and Embry arguing over little things (_I can hear what you won't say_) and Billy, and this is what breaks Jacob's heart, Billy who is King, Billy who is Alpha even when he is being lifted by others in and out of his chair, when he is being helped by his own son to do the most basic of things, that Billy is now helpless (_Jacob remembers a poem from school 'I love your helplessness, you who hate being helpless' but Jacob disagrees – he cannot stand it, this is his father._)

Oh Sam, Jacob thinks, Oh Sam I'm so ashamed.

This is not what Sam has come to hear. The weary wolf departs even though Jacob begs him to stay.

_I have to go. They call for me even now, even here._

Jacob nods, he will not ask any more, he knows what this means. Duty. It has been drummed into him since he was a boy, God knows he will not ask Sam to stay for him.

_Come back Jacob. Sam's eyes are luminous. Just come home and be Alpha. It's what you deserve. _

Jacob remembers the night he found out, found out he was supposed to be Alpha and he refused, almost on a whim. How Billy raged, 'It's your rightful place, son! It's your goddamn place!'

And now as he stands, alone, at the edge of the pier looking at the smeared, blurred image of himself in the water, he remembers this – this conversation, this argument and there is abruptly a lump in his throat, a lump at the thought of a father, of a home, of a rightful place for him.

He could of been _Alpha _he thinks, he wonders what that word means to him. He's said it so much to himself it recent times it should mean nothing, like a foreign word in an alien dialect – too distant and jumbled to have any real resonance, any significance. Instead, it means the world.

He looks around as the city passes him by. Nobody even notices him anymore.

_**I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender.**_

Jacob Black is in Central Park, watching a little girl struggle to put her roller blades on. Her mother stoops down to help her and the girl looks up and straight at Jake. She smiles and his lips twitch at the corners, helplessly.

I could go home, he thinks. Swings to his feet with grace, his movements are so sleek these days he's silent, not even a vampire could detect it.

_The city air is making me strong. _

The city air is also making him light, buoyant, weightless but not insubstantial, not empty. He is alive, he knows that now and there are so many moments in the day when he wants to climb to the top of the Statue of Liberty and declare it to the rest of the city.

_I am. I exist. Jacob Black is here. Jacob Black. Jacob Black. Jacob Black._

He does not, of course because though he is alive, though he is there (so much substance, he who thought for so many days that he had no substance) nobody cares for him in this park, in this hotel, in this city. Jacob Black has no friends, no family, no roots here.

_In my dreams, I see a forest, leafy, green and full of secrets. In my mind, there is a phantom wolf who runs there with his spectral friends every night while the moon above them watches. _

I could go home, he thinks. Sucks in his breath, repeats the words to himself. I could go home. Find Billy. Become Alpha.

_Alpha! _

The thought of it makes him want to dance.

Shoulders slumped casually he looks out at New York, hands stuffed into his pockets, hair whipped ruthlessly by the wind. He remembers the smile of a girl as she mouthed the words, ' Chief Jacob' to him on a cold night so many days ago.

_Jacob Black. Jacob Black. Jacob Black. _

_**get me on my feet. am I on my feet? **_

Jacob Black has no friends in New York City.

So he calls a cab from Bryant Park to take him to Grand Central Station.

The cabbie, who's name is Roy, swings around to gape at him, "That you, kid? It is, ain't it? Who woulda thunk – two times in one month. Now, that's somethin'."

"Some guys have all the bad luck," Jacob jokes as he slides in.

The cabbie swivels around and starts to drive, "Sure, sure."

The taxi departs and Jacob bites his lip. The cabbie watches from his mirror.

"Home, kid? Back to the family?" he asks.

"Back to the family, yeah," Jacob agrees.

"They'll be happy to have you back," Roy promises, full of confidence.

Jacob says nothing for a while, he traces the shape of the seat in front of him with imaginary fingers.

"I don't know, I don't know, I've done some terrible things."

"Aaah," Roy looks at him, the car slows down behind a rickety Volkswagen, "Running away ain't so bad. Everybody, every kid, has some kind of a rebellion at some point. Even me, buddy."

Jacob cracks a smile, "Even you?"

Roy grins, "When I was sixteen I got kicked out of school and I was scared shitless to tell the folks at home so I high jacked the old man's Cadillac – boy, was he proud of the Cadillac – drove it all the way from NYC to Providence where I stayed for a week with my aunt Bessie who adored me. When I got back, the old man damn near kicked me out. Gave me an ass-whooping I remember to this very day."

Jacob chuckled with the cabbie and the two continued in companionable silence for a moment.

"But I, I shirked responsibility, Roy," Jacob confessed suddenly, looking down at his big red-brown hands, "And worse, oh I did worse too. And they'll all know. I mean, they'll find out one way or another and then...They might not take me back – I mean, they will. They'll take me back. But they might not _want _me back."

_I've done so many terrible things, he wants to say. He wants to tell him everything. I left and I stole, Roy, I stole the goddamn money. _

"Nah," Roy shakes his head, "Y'know what the old man said to me after I came home?"

Jacob lifts his head from his hands, "What?"

"He says, 'Son, this is your home, this is your family, this is your place. This is where you belong. You're always gonna belong, whether you're in school or you're out, whether you're out on the streets fighting for a dollar or in a swanky board room selling yourself out for money, now matter how low you stoop, you're always gonna belong in your home. It's your place, son – your goddamn rightful place.'"

Jacob doesn't say anything. There's a lump in his throat.

Roy is pleased with himself, his father didn't say exactly that. But it's damn well more poetic this way. He look at the mirror to check the boy's reaction. He's still as a statue and Roy wonders if he's heard everything he just said. Unbeknownst to Jacob, a single tears betrays him as it trickles down his cheek. He feels the cool stream it leaves in its wake.

The car pulls up in front of Grand Central Station. Roy stops, parks and then hesitantly turns around and puts his sweaty hand on top of Jacob's.

Jacob makes a sound, lifts his shaggy head and Roy thinks that this boy is such a mystery, that he can simultaneously be so vulnerable and helpless as a little child and still have the presence of an immovable army general, of a prince, of a king.

The kid looks up at him and stares the cabbie straight in the eye. The cabbie smiles resignedly.

"Go home, kid."


End file.
